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Macs End Up Costing 3 Times Less Than Windows PCs Because of Fewer Tech Support Expense, Says IBM's IT Guy (yahoo.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report on Yahoo (edited): Last year, Fletcher Previn became a cult figure of sorts in the world of enterprise IT. As IBM's VP of Workplace as a Service, Previn is the guy responsible for turning IBM (the company that invented the PC) into an Apple Mac house. Previn gave a great presentation at last year's Jamf tech conference where he said Macs were less expensive to support than Windows. Only 5% of IBM's Mac employees needed help desk support versus 40% of PC users. At that time, some 30,000 IBM employees were using Macs. Today 90,000 of them are, he said. And IBM ultimately plans to distribute 150,000 to 200,000 Macs to workers, meaning about half of IBM's approximately 370,000 employees will have Macs. Previn's team is responsible for all the company's PCs, not just the Macs. All told IBM's IT department supports about 604,000 laptops between employees and its 100,000+ contractors. Most of them are Windows machines -- 442,000 -- while 90,000 are Macs and 72,000 are Linux PCs. IBM is adding about 1,300 Macs a week, Previn said.
I mean, I'm sure our Linux users overall require the least tech support. But that's a function of who they are more than what they're using.
I don't doubt that Macs require less support, but 40% vs 5% says that something else is going on - and I doubt that sort of ratio will hold once people are converted in bulk.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Why call bullshit? Macs generally require less user intervention to run, and don't have automatic updates to screw things up at inopportune times. Program installation and removal is generally much simpler.
The hardware is also of much better quality than most "enterprise" computer builds, so it would last a lot longer and not have glitches...
The only people who doubt this story are those that have never used both Windows and Mac computers extensively.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm glad he made a point of saying Windows PCs rather than just PCs, as the world in general tends to do.
I've always hated Windows and found it far more awkward, unfriendly and non-intuitive to use than literally any other OS I've ever tried (which after 35 years of software development is a LOT). Windows started out as a messy compromise (anyone else remember yield()? )and has only gotten worse over time. It truly boggles my mind how most corporates and their IT departments still continue to push its use over other OS's.
idiots that cant figure out the slightest thing, and they pay the premium for it too!
Because of this, PCs continue to race to the bottom and are a source of trouble even for expert users and will never get better because those users suck every dime from system vendor margins. Mac's make Apple some money because, as long as they "just work", they can charge a premium and be part of the food chain.
One, the Linux and Mac users are probably ones explicitly asking for it, meaning they care enough to request it specifically. Compared against the general population, the subset is going to be more experienced enthusiasts.
Two, one of the biggest enemies of Windows usability is corporate preloads. Botched updates, sometimes 5 or six anti-virus applications and multiple firewall and update managers installed haphazardly.
All that said, I'd still take Linux in a heartbeat, but still Windows to some extent suffers the downsides of its own success.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Macs are mostly given to software devs and graphic artists who are much less likely to do stupid things with their machine than your average MBA Powerpoint jockey?
Who else's fault would it be that Windows requires 3x more support?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Just think if apple had better hardware how dead windows can be.
But right now they have 3-4 year old hardware at new hardware pricing.
No real workstation
No power desktop
No gaming desktop
Well the new mac pro kind of fits the listed rolls but in a poor way with lot's of ext stuff needed to make it full.
No real servers or even a good mini server.
No tough book laptop
No all in desktop with easy to swap hdd's and ram.
No laptop with more then a few ports
No gaming laptop
No Mobile workstation laptop with workstation video and or high end cpus.
No dual cpu workstation.
No os rollback on new hardware.
Having worked at IBM before, there was a lot of legacy software than ran on PC which would often stop working because of a problem with a remote server. The only way to report such problems would be by calling the help desk. It wouldn't matter whether it was a problem with Windows, or whether you knew exactly what the problem was. It all had to be reported through the help desk.
I imagine that if you use a Mac then it means you don't need to run any of the legacy software. And if you don't need to run the legacy software, there's no reason to ever call the help desk.
I would believe if there were fewer hardware-related help desk calls with the Mac, but I have a hard time believing that PCs require more help desk calls simply because Windows/PCs sucks.
Lotus Notes / Domino and other IBM software that is mandatory on Windows laptops is to blame for much of this. Mac OS users are much more on their own, are not bogged down with all the company cr*p and just do their job.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Yeah, Macs are good for people that know little about computers and don't want to spent time learning about computers, but still want to use them as a tool to achieve their goal. The operating systems from google follow the same philosophy and are also quite popular among people who simply want to use the device and not being afraid of screwing things up if they click something wrong. And because both of those companies don't have to deal with all kinds of different system configurations on the hardware and driver side, the result is lower maintenance.
What else is new?
Given the fact how often I change some of the hardware in my machine and knowing a bit about fixing things on my own, Windows 7 and the lasted Debian derivatives do a better job for me.
Selection bias.
The sort of person who is going to demand a Mac will be the sort of person who doesn't need as much support.
Same as people who use alternative web browsers -- if you know enough to care, you are probably the sort of person who doesn't need help.
The data is only relevant if the people getting Mac and the people who get PC are chosen at random.